


Father's Day

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 'bots observe an Earth holiday in their own way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Father's Day

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever MST fic so I hope it does the request justice! Thanks to my husband for beta reading.
> 
> Written for logicandchaos

 

 

Crow T. Robot pored over the piles of old magazines in one of the many unused rooms  
on board the Satellite Of Love. A few weeks ago, Joel had found the magazines and  
some books left over from when the SOL was intended to be a new international space  
station; sure, this meant that there were a lot of technical manuals in Chinese   
and Romanian, but there were some interesting books in English mixed in too. Joel  
had made up a little reading area with a lamp and a beanbag chair which had become  
one of Crow's new favorite places to pass time on a Sunday afternoon.

Crow looked at all the colorful pictures and wondered about life on Earth: here   
a group of children played some game on a sunny field, here a man and a woman held  
hands and looked into each other's eyes. At least these pictures were a welcome  
change from the frenetic images in all the movies the Mads made them watch, and   
helped Crow imagine what it would be like to live way down there on that big blue  
planet. He slid down from the beanbag chair and wandered off in search of Servo.  
For the idea he'd just had, Crow figured he'd need a little help from the  
small, sturdy 'bot.

In a former solarium decorated with a few vacuum flowers and about as airy as a   
room on a spaceship could possibly get, Joel hummed a cheery little tune which might  
have been "The Girl From Ipanema" as he worked on his newest Invention  
Exchange. Cambot hovered nearby, lending the occasional click and whir to the song  
and showing Joel the view from every angle of the Gizmonic device. "I don't  
know, Cambot," Joel sighed. "Do you think it needs more ball bearings?  
Maybe a pulley?" Cambot swung his lens slowly from side to side and instead  
glided over to a nearby pile of spare parts, displaying an image of a plastic wiffle-ball  
scoop.

Joel beamed. "That's it! Perfect. Thanks, little guy! Remind me to   
get you an extra RAM chip later." He hurried over to the pile of parts and  
picked up the scoop, turning it from side to side and squinting to imagine where  
it would best fit on the new invention. One thing about this place, there was no  
shortage of interesting building material. Joel supposed he could thank the Mads  
for that, after a fashion. After all, if Forrester and Erhardt had bothered to   
clear away all the forgotten equipment and furniture and various amusements that  
were supposed to entertain the inhabitants of the space station, there would have  
been nothing for him to make Invention Exchanges with, let alone his companions.

Of course, Joel mused, if only he hadn't used those particular special parts  
to make his robot friends, he might have had more control over the environment of  
the SOL. But it was sure good to have someone to talk to during the long hours.  
And, in his more fanciful moments, Joel imagined that this must be what it was like  
to be a parent: constantly discovering one's children's likes and dislikes,  
patiently waiting for each facet of each child's personality to unfold and show  
itself. He smiled to himself as he put the finishing touches on the invention.   
The robots would really think he'd gone space-silly if he ever said anything  
as ridiculous as that; after all, each of them was an independent, self-contained  
robotic life form with advanced artificial intelligence, personality sequencers   
and free will, much closer to being adults than children. Heck, Gypsy alone had  
to be at least a hundred times smarter than Joel himself, able to control all the  
higher functions of a ship this size and still have enough time and brainpower left  
over for scrapbooking, learning to knit, and watching old episodes of "Voyage  
to the Bottom of the Sea."

Joel backed away from his project, stretched, and walked over to one of the windows  
in his workshop. He gazed out at the endless blanket of stars, thinking how ironic  
it was that the thrilling outer space adventure he'd dreamed of as a boy was  
really a lot more like being grounded forever. More than ever, he was suddenly   
grateful for the company of his 'bots, and turned to mention something like   
that to Cambot--but when he completed his turn, he was alone in the room. Joel   
shrugged. Cambot probably had something else to do, he reasoned, although he realized  
he didn't really know what Cambot did when left to his own devices. "Must  
remember to ask him that sometime," Joel muttered to himself. Then he forgot  
that last thought instantly when he heard Magic Voice's words.

"Joel, could you come up to the observation lounge? There's a...situation...that  
needs your attention."

"Whillikers!" Joel bounded out of the room and up the ladders that led  
to the observation lounge. "Magic Voice," he panted, "what's  
going on up there?"

"I'm sorry, Joel, I don't have any more information." She seemed  
oddly serene, which calmed Joel a little.

Finally, Joel reached the doorway to the observation lounge. He smacked the button  
on the doorframe with the palm of his hand and lurched through the portal, to see...all  
four of his robots clustered together, surrounded by posters made of pictures cut  
out from magazines: men holding children's hands, tossing baseballs, building  
model airplanes.

"You guys." Joel couldn't help but smile. "What have you been  
up to?"

Gypsy drew herself up and enunciated as clearly as she could while still maintaining  
her control over the ship's functions, "We, the robots of the Satellite  
of Love, want to wish you a Happy Father's Day, Joel!" The sentence complete,  
her eye-light flickered as if the effort had tired her. Joel patted the oversized  
purple head. "Thanks, girl," he whispered. "That means a lot to  
me."

"All right, all right, cut the mushy stuff." Crow nudged past Gypsy and  
held out a claw. "If you'd care to look at these artist's renderings,  
Mr. Robinson--" he said in as officious a voice as he could muster, and led  
Joel towards the posters.

The narrative was taken up by Tom Servo, hovering by one of the pictures. He appeared  
to be trying to hurry through his part of the spiel. "--you'll see that,  
even though you're not really our dad, we still love you and we're thankful  
to you for creating us." His bubble head spun. "Gee whiz, I'm blushing,"  
he muttered in that deep voice that always so amused Joel, with just a touch of   
sarcasm to cover the genuine sentiment. Or at least that's what Joel chose   
to think.

Cambot nudged Joel over to the middle of the artworks and clicked and whirred at  
the other 'bots until they moved to join their creator. He hovered over them  
all, making sure to take in the whole scene so they could all enjoy the footage   
later on Still-Store. It was then that Joel noticed the full-length mirror Crow  
had pushed over to the edge of the artworks so that Cambot could be in the pictures  
too.

Joel's eyes shone. He missed his family back home like the dickens; he was   
tired of never feeling grass under his feet; some days he wished he'd never   
taken that job at the Gizmonic Institute. But right now, today, he felt like the  
luckiest guy in space.

 


End file.
